After a few stressful weeks of recruiting, I was used to seeing emails come in every minute of the day demanding (nicely?) progress amongst other things.

Then, one night I received an email thanking me for being a person on the other end of the recruitment table. This was from a candidate who received a rejection email. Wow, how absolutely uplifting and emotional rewarding I immediately felt. My spirits which had been plummeting to a dangerous low immediately rose to extraordinary lengths again. It was one candidate out of hundreds but I felt rewarded for being praised for being human. Mission accomplished for one person!

My mother brought us up to mind our P’s and Q’s. For those who don’t know them, it’s the please and thank you’s in life. Where have the P’s and Q’s gone? I sometimes think they have disappeared from our vocabulary and been replaced by “give me”. P’s and Q’s are not history people – they are still around and should be part of our daily bread. A simple thank you can mean the world to the person receiving it and not just in Recruitment – in daily life.

I challenge you all to try incorporating your P’s and Q’s immediately whether it is via email; to the person who allowed you to get into the lift first, to the smallest gesture given to you. Not just to the Recruiter or to the people who interviewed you. Try it – you will also immediately feel good!

Last week I received several telephone calls and emails from candidates who had been interviewed for internal and external client jobs. They wanted feedback and I couldn’t give it to them!

Despite my many attempts to speak to line managers for some action, it was futile, nothing was given to me and I felt hopeless. I had to go back to the candidates and admit that our processes were stalling; but in an effective way. In other words, I had to fabricate.

But, I was a job seeker for over a year in Dubai. I didn’t get call backs, email responses and received only an occasional “sorry you were unsuccessful”. Now that I am sitting in the recruiter’s seat – I do not want to treat candidates the same way I was treated. Am I naïve? Will I get jaded and cold? Only if I carry on “fabricating”. So, I decided no more fabrications! Candidates deserve the truth.

I will tell them our process has stalled and to please carry on looking for an alternative job. I will tell them their test results were poor; or their English is not fluent enough. Yes – we will lose candidates and probably the best ones too but at the end of the day, I will be able to sleep at night. Best of all, the company reputation will not be jaded (hopefully).

So, I did that today and was enormously rewarded. Candidates wrote back to us saying “thank you for responding; thank you for the feedback; I appreciate your email”. WOW – that was the right way to go. Candidates happy, company happy and best of all, I am happy.

Allow me to introduce myself as the newest addition to The Working Bees where everything is as sweet as honey due. Which by the way is what you can call me Honeybee is how I like to go by! Bringing you the sweetest touch about everything you wish you knew from the other side of the interview table.

Oh yes expect nothing but pure honey sweet scoop on everything HR you wish you knew. My inspiration came today when walking a potential candidate into the interview room.

Now we all know where Christiano Ronaldo comes from, if thats not enough reason to get your holiday pants over to Lisbon then I hope my gorgeous backdrop envy will! Lets take a tuk tsk and brisk through Lisbon, thats what I did

It’s February and every year this is when I see my motivation start to disappear for the gym. After the December I find myself, along with many others, not being as strict with myself about getting up before work and going to the Gym. When my alarm goes off now, with one eye open my mind ponders the gym? Or another hour in bed? The latter is fast becoming a more appealing option.

The key to falling into this trap is to mix up your routine. I love to do all sorts of exercises from Salsa to RPM. Dubai is a great place for me as everything is on offer and there is no limit to latest fitness trends that are on offer. Hence my delight when L’Atelier Aquafitness invited me to attended an early morning class.

There was no pondering the morning my alarm went off to attend an aquafitness class with a twist! Imagine aquafitness mixed with RPM…….